something that not only survives but never loses its power to inspire. when the great hindenberg burst into flames. the announcer seeing the victims in agony could only say the unforgotten, "oh, the humanity." together we could only say, oh, the civilization. that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> all we need to do is see the mueller report. >> in the middle of congressal recess, the attorney general decides to release his version of the mueller report. >> i'm landing the plane right now. >> tonight what we can expect to see on thursday, and how the president will try to spin it. plus -- >> what's your tax rate? i don't know. i pay as little as possible. because i'm an honest guy. >> the latest excuse from a white house desperate to keep the president's taxes under wraps. >> i don't think congress are smart enough to look through the

thousands of pages that i would assume that president trump's taxes will be. >> congresswoman katie porter joins me tonight to respond. then -- >> i am running -- >> for president -- >> of the united states of america. >> three more men officially enter the 2020 race. rebecca traister is here to talk about that. and awful scenes in paris. when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are, of course, following the breaking news out of paris, where firefighters are still at this hour battling a massive fire that threatened the whole structure of the historic notre dame cathedral. we'll bring you the latest developments ahead, but first, after a special counsel probe lasting almost two years, we are finally, finally going to get some version of the 400-page mueller report this thursday. after releasing a four-page summary within two days of

mueller ending the investigation last month, the attorney general william barr has taken nearly four weeks to redact material, falling under four different categories, classified information, grand jury evidence, information about ongoing investigations and details implicating the privacy interests of individuals that barr called peripheral third parties. barr's redacted version of the mueller report, which each of those categories color coded, will now come out on the eve of the major religious holidays in the midst of a two-week congressional recess, effectively running out the clock until lawmakers are going and washington is more or less deserted. on efforts by different russian agents and cutouts to reach out to members of the trump campaign and on evidence that the president of the united states may have committed obstruction of justice. it's that last section, obstruction of justice, that's the one most likely to contain new information incriminating the man sitting in the white house. even barr's summary suggested as much, claiming the report sets

out evidence on both sides of the question. since then we've learned from the first ever leaks originating inside the mueller team that some of his investigators feel the evidence for obstruction was much stronger han what barr has disclosed. meanwhile, the white house is publicly projecting confidence while preparing in private to undermine any evidence that mueller may have uncovered. the president's aides and allies claim that barr's four-page summery is the only report that matters. >> we consider this to be case closed. there was no collusion. there was no obstruction. i don't know how you can order that any other way than total exoneration. >> yes, except for the line about how it doesn't exonerate the president. behind the scenes, the president's lawyers are preparing a campaign to discredit mueller's findings. meeting today to hold a strategy session and right a 140-page so-called counter-report accord og to "the wall street journal." according to another report, the white house has been briefed on the broad strokes of mueller's report and worried about the

testimony of one particular witness. >> there is significant concerns about what will be in here, new information on the obstruction of justice question, on what the president was doing regarding some of the big questions. was he trying to -- how much -- how far did he go down the line of trying to fire mueller or talk about firing mueller? the situation surrounding the comey firing. and what worries them most is what don mcgahn told the special counsel. >> former white house counsel. >> former white house counsel don mcgahn has visibility on all of this. >> don mcgahn spent more than 30 hours talking to investigators, significantly more, according to abc news. he was reportedly never debriefed by the president's legal team, leaving them in the dark about what he shared with the special counsel. it appears that members of congress are set to receive the same redacted version of the report as the public, though the attorney general testified last week he'll work to accommodate law fir lawmakers demands for considerably more information. jerry nadler has subpoenas ready to go for the unredacted mueller

report and all the unlying evidence. for more on what we can expect to see this thursday, i'm joined by msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg, former u.s. official and former fbi senior official and julia ainsley. julia, let's start with you on sort of the basic balls and strikes here. how does a report against transmitted? who gets it first? who gets to see it? >> okay. so we know on thursday morning the justice department is expected to give their version, the redacted version you laid out, to the public and to congress. it should come roughly around the same time. congress may get about a 15-minute heads up, we're not sure, some kind of window. really, we will see the same version in the public and congress at that same time. some people have said, well, shouldn't congress get more because they've been pushing for that? really, under special counsel regulations we're supposed to get the exact same thing because congress doesn't have power here. everyone here, whether you're a member of congress or not, we're all being filtered through the justice department because the regulations give so much power

to the attorney general in this process, which is different than how it was in the '90s when someone like bob mueller would have gone directly to go. we now go through that filter. so we're expecting to see that version thursday morning, and then let the subpoenas begin because we know we won't see the full report and we know jerry nadler says he's willing to subpoena the attorney general to get what he thinks is the full transparency of the report. >> the -- one of the big questions, chuck. there's three areas here. what was the russian effort? there are a million unanswered questions just about that. take out the president. take out obstruction. what was the nature of the effort? when did it start? why did it start? how did it develop? how involved was the kremlin and the gru and perhaps putin himself in running the operation, et cetera? then there is the interface between u.s. persons and russia and the obstruction. i guess my question to you is what is your anticipation of how much of that are we going to see? >> not as much as we'd like, which is the easy answer, chris. i think there are going to be different redactions for

different reasons. for instance, on the russia part, i can expect a lot of that information will be redacted because it's classified. on the obstruction part, i would imagine a lot of that information will be redacted because it's grand jury information or that it pertains to ongoing investigations. those four categories you laid out at the beginning of your show are precisely right. but they will pertain in different ways to different parts of the stuff. >> i mean, there is a sort of maddening situation here, julia, which is that this is -- as you said, this is guided by special counsel regulations and wove now got the situation in which barr took it upon himself to release the bottom line conclusions. he quoted 42 words. took another month to get us this. then there is going to be another fight over that about the rest of it. and at some level the sort of question of what is entered into the public record is the pressing one. >> right. so, again, we'll want to get to those -- we'll want to be able to make our own bottom line conclusions, right? >> right. >> some people have been critical of the attorney general for maybe putting his spin on this, especially for making that

decision on the obstruction case that mueller did not make. barr did not have to make that, but he went that far, so what we're hearing a lot from the justice department is that they're very sensitive to what could be criticism that would come after this. so they keep wanting to reinforce the fact it's not just barr working alone, that he's working with people on mueller's team, he's working with rod rosenstein, who has been part of this investigation from the beginning, to go through what should be redacted and what shouldn't. as you pointed out from the article you showed that we published a few weeks ago, there had been people on mueller's team who were not happy with the way barr did this, specifically in the bottom line conclusions. they thought he paved over a lot of the work that they did, and they weren't necessarily appreciative of him going ahead and making that decision on obstruction. so in the end, this is barr's report, even though he brings other people into the room, this is the power that has been given to him -- >> right. >> and we know from his testimony last week, he's willing to go to court now to fight subpoenas to get more information if he doesn't think

it's information that the public needs to know. >> one thing i'm looking for in those summaries, one of the things we've learned from the reporting and i think leaks from the mueller team is that they had prepared internal summaries to different parts of it, which were not released, which i think some of them anticipated would be. one would assume it will be hard to redact those. >> possibly. i mean, the -- remember, the executive summaries, and i'm not surprised that the mueller team wrote them. >> right. >> are, what, derived from the body of the report. and the body of that report contains grand jury information. so it depends on how they define matters occurring before a grand jury. whether or not it falls within or without -- or outside the ambit of federal rule of criminal procedure 6-c. not to get too nerdy, but that rule controls what they can release. and interestingly, just earlier this month, a court in the district of columbia, federal appellate court in the district of columbia, said that judges

don't have any inherent authority to release grand jury information. if they're going to release it, it has to be pursuant to the rule and to an exception enumerated in the rule. so i'm expecting a lot of redactions. i don't know how many, but more than i'd like. >> there is also the question of what the sort of public response is from the mueller team, julia, right? i mean, that is the ultimate political check here, i think, honestly, the binding condition. the fact that the people who wrote the report are out there walking around and presumably can talk about it. >> right, i mean, it wasn't up to them to do speaking after this. the main spokesperson from the mueller team is back at the justice department. doing the same job he was two years ago, before mueller's job even existed. so they have really taken away the capacity for that team to speak, but that doesn't mean that you won't see some people from the mueller team go to congress or go -- >> right. >> -- find other ways to get to

the media if they feel that the work that they did isn't getting out in the best light or there is some sort of filter. bar barr's filter is too strong and they don't like what they're seeing out there. that was the most telling from the reporting we had a few weeks ago and others that they wanted to get a message out. something didn't jive with the investigation that they did. now, in the end they did still come to the conclusion there there was no coordination or conspiracy. >> of course. >> it's this obstruction question. so i think that's why when we're going through this on thursday, the key things to be looking for is the obstruction information that was not made public and why in the world robert mueller made the decision not to make a decision. >> i will just say, quoting the conspiracy -- the phrase exactly was, "the evidence failed to establish that," i think was the specific phrase, right? if evidence failed to establish that. just to you, same question. do you view their presence, mueller's team, as a sort of

binding constraint on how much this can be filtered? >> well, you know, maybe. and the reason i'm waffling, chris, is because the mueller team, and i know several of the people on it, have been extraordinarily decorous in the way they've handled this. i don't expect the mueller team in any form or fashion to descend on congress with a bunch of publicly aired complaints. this will have to come out over time through court orders and court litigation and perhaps leaks from congress. we've seen that before. >> chuck rosenberg and julia ainsley, thank you both. speaking of congress, my next guest has access to classified information as a member of the house intelligence committee. congressman julian castro, democrat from texas. i will just follow up from you the degree of satisfaction you have with this process now, the thursday release of the redacted version that barr has filtered of the mueller report. >> well, i'm glad that we finally have a date.

we know when it's going to come out. look, we need to see all of it. i understand there are going to be redactions when the report is made available to the public, but congress needs to be able to see the full thing. remember, especially those of us on the intelligence committee, are routinely looking at classified information, and often times we'll have special sessions where all of congress is invited to come look at classified information. so there is no reason that the special counsel shouldn't make this available -- i'm sorry, the attorney general shouldn't make it available to all of congress to see. >> let's -- i want to talk about the first 1/3 of their report, or at least one part of its portfolio, which is just what the russian efforts were. you're on a committee that punitively investigated all of that. although there is a lot of criticism about the nature of that investigation. what are your -- how curious are you on that part of the report? take away conspiracy with u.s. persons and obstruction. do you feel like you have a full sense of what the russians were up to and is that something you're looking forward to learning in the report?

>> yeah, i mean, that is one of the most important pieces of this report because it will tell us basically the methods that they used to try to infiltrate the trump campaign or influence the trump campaign, and we know that they're probably in the future going to be other attempts to do the same thing, not just with the trump campaign, but with other political campaign and that it won't just be russia, but that it will be other nations. especially if other countries feel as if there is no penalty to interfering with american elections and trying to make inroads with particular campaigns. so the reason that it's so important is that we need to di devise as a congress the best ways to prevent that from happening. >> i want to play for you something that your colleague on your committee, devin nunez, who, of course, is the ranking member, was the chair of that committee had to say about what he sees as the value of the report. take a listen. >> i don't really care what the mueller report says. the mueller special counsel

should have never been appointed. so the mueller report, you know, a lot of people say, what does it say? we can just burn it up. it is a partisan document. >> what do you think of that? >> well, you know, i hadn't heard that clip. that is just amazing. that somebody that was a chairman of the intel committee for a few years basically is completely dismissing a report on russian interference in our elections, and the possibility or the involvement or anybody in the trump circle. it's amazing. >> what do you think -- what do you see as the sort of willingness for battle on your side in terms of fighting these four categories of redactions and what the sort of process is in thinking about how much and how intensely chair schiff and chair nadler and others will seek the full underlying body of evidence underneath the report? >> well, many of us have always believed that this is a report that is owed to the american people, most of all, before it's

owed to democrats or republicans or anyone in congress, so i think what you're going to see is adam schiff and jerry nadler and others to fight to make as much of that report available to the public as possible, and they're going to do everything they can to make that happen. >> do you have conversations -- i mean -- do you have conversations with republicans in the house who ostensibly favor transparency as well? devin nunes himself paired with adam schiff to write a letter. is that still the operating conceit of our republican colleagues in the house, that everything should come out? a lot of other folks seemed to have moved away from that in the intervening 3 1/2 weeks. >> you're right. my sense is that now some republicans think that the report may have let the president off the hook. it seems like more are willing to just kind of put it aside, and in the words of devin nunes, consistent with that. and just let bygones be bygones and move on, unfortunately. >> all right. congressman julian castro on the house intelligence committee, thank you so much for joining

me. >> thank you. it is, of course, tax day. you've got a few more hours and donald trump's team is doing everything they can to keep you from seeing his returns. congresswoman katie porter joins me in just two minutes. moving is hard.

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the president's lawyers are celebrating tax day today by sending a defiant letter to the irs. arguing why donald trump's tax returns should not be furnished to the house ways and means committee, despite the legislation to the contrary. the president's lawyer argues that his client is just a humble citizen facing a possibly unconstitutional inquization from congress playing dress-up as a, "junior varsity irs." the letter even compares donald trump to leaders of the civil rights movement. what if at the height of the civil rights movement, the democratic-controlled house tried to intimidate democratic leaders by requesting their tax returns. yes, what about that? for years, trump and his allies have basically grabbed whatever argument they can to try to prevent access to his taxes. he's under audit. it's not legal. it was litigated in the

campaign. this weekend sarah sanders tried out a new one, points for novelty, congress won't be able to understand trump's taxes. >> i don't think congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that i would assume that president trump's taxes will be. my guess is most of them don't do their own taxes. >> democratic congresswoman katie porter of california responded, "our freshman class includes intelligence analysts, veterans, nurses and law professors, i think we can handle it." that congresswoman, katie porter, joins me now. congresswoman, sarah sanders basically said you're too dumb to understand these taxes. what do you think? >> i know that i am ready to take a look at donald trump's tax returns, and for secretary -- for secretary sanders' information, i do my own taxes every year, and i think it's really insulting that we're not being treated as a co-equal branch of government. the law here is pretty clear that the president needs to turn over his tax returns, and this

is the job that the american people have tasked us -- asked us to do. and it's our job to do it. so i really hope the president complies with the law. i hope he quits dragging this out and i have every confidence in my fellow men and women on both sides of the aisle to be able to review these tax returns. >> how do you interpret -- the letter today was really quite provocative. it was quite aggressive about the congress' authority, both under statute and the constitution, and it does seem like they have gone very nuclear very quickly. how do you interpret that? >> i think it suggests the reluctance of the president to comply with the law. he truly is exhibiting the attitude that the rules that apply to the rest of us don't ply apply to him. he's not an ordinary citizen. he's the president of the united states. an office that he ran for. he has considerable power. and the american people deserve to know if donald trump is working for us, if there is nothing to see in his tax returns, there is nothing to see, but that's a question that

needs to be answered, and that's why i wholeheartedly believe the american people need to see these tax returns. >> you know, there were subpoenas today from congressional investigators of deutsche bank and other lenders to the president, part of the sort of rounding out the financial picture. what's your response -- the president's lawyers and some of his defenders are trying to make sort of an interesting argument, which is basically, yes, he's president, but he's also simultaneously private citizen donald trump and this is some kind of an invasion, an encroachment into that sacrosanct right of privacy. >> it just doesn't work that way. we all give up a great deal of our privacy. as a member of the house of representatives, for example, i have to make financial disclosures. he can't have it both ways. if he wants to be president of the united states, then he needs to follow the rules and be forthcoming about any business dealings that may call into question what he's doing as president. if he wants to return to being a private citizen, i personally

would be just fine with that, but if he wants to have the office of president, then he needs to follow the rules. he can't make his own rules. there is a role for the courts, there is a role for the congress and there is a role for the president, and he doesn't get to control each of the rest of us. we each have an important job to do. i respect the job he has to do. it's frustrating he doesn't respect the job of congress. >> you know, the president and the republicans and their allies spent the day touting the big tax cut, which was in sort of a numerical sense largely a corporate tax cut, but "the new york times" ran this headline, which i thought was interesting. "face it, you probably got a tax cut." studies consistently found that the law cut taxes for most americans. most people don't buy it. even if most people don't feel that way. what do you think of that? >> i think one of the things about the trump tax law is that it's having very disparate effects around the country. so i represent orange county, california, and the limit in the trump tax law on state and local

tax deductions is a huge issue for us. i was working on my taxes today, and every time i would put in a deduction, it would pop up, you've already hit your $10,000 state and local deduction cap. put something else, you've already hit your $10,000 state and local deduction cap. for folks here in orange county, we're hearing from a lot of them they owe 7,000, even $14,000 in additional taxes. a lot of folks are having to turn to credit cards to find the money to pay the extra taxes. by singling out states that have expensive homes or have significant state and local taxes, donald trump is really making the effects of his tax plan felt -- being felt unevenly around the country. so folks here in orange county are not happy. i've co-sponsored legislation to reverse the limit on state and local taxes, and i've co-authored a bipartisan letter to speaker pelosi and majority -- sorry, minority leader mccarthy, asking them to bring that legislation up for a vote on the house floor.

>> there is also news today about how corporations have fared under this regime. twice as many companies paying zero taxes under the trump tax plan. the theory of the case there was that reduced liability would lead to increased investment and better job growth, and the president's defenders say, hey, look at the job numbers, look at the growth numbers, everything is going great. what do you say? >> look, the economy is doing fine. it was doing fine before this tax plan. what we've seen primarily as a result of the tax plan is companies are taking their money and they're engaging in stock b buybacks, and that's exactly what we saw with jpmorgan chase. earlier this week in the hearing, i asked the ceo jamesen dimon, look at this working working full-time in your bank. they couldn't afford to make ends meet. how about raising worker pay? we're not seeing corporations reinvest that money. if you read a lot of shareholder letters, what these ceos are saying is we have excess capital and cash. we're looking for ways to invest it.

i think the obvious answer is to invest it back into your workers and the american people who have helped make your corporation profitable. >> do you -- do you think there will be appetite should congress -- the democrats retake congress to just reverse these tax cuts or to raise taxes in other areas? >> i personally think we have to tackle tax reform. we need fair tax -- a fair tax plan, and the fact that more and more corporations are paying zero is heading in the absolute wrong direction. so whether it's reversing trump's tax plan entirely, we're trying to improve upon the tax plan. we definitely have to do something. we can't keep asking americans, individual workers, single moms like me to shoulder the tax burden while large corporations get off literally scott free. >> you do your own taxes. you mentioned adding deductions. did you get that filed before you came on today? are you under the wire? >> i'm on my way to the post office. i have the check written. i owe this year, despite my

income being much lower. >> good luck with that. i'll let you go. congresswoman katie porter, thank you very much. one of the most iconic structures in the western world in flames today. the fire at notre dame. what's lost and what has been saved, next. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. each day justin at work... walk.

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world watched in horror and disbelief today as one of the most iconic buildings in the west, the famed notre dame cathedral in paris was engulfed in flames on live television. this was notre dame before the fire, erected in the 12th and 13th centuries. it has survived revolution and wars and ransacking over the past 850-plus years. tonight paris police say the structure of the cathedral has

been saved, but the damage is overwhelming. the fire began in notre dame's roof in the early evening. even as tourists were still trying to enter before the cathedral closed for the day. thousands gathered on the streets to watch, some of them crying as the fire quickly spread. within an hour or so, the fire reach the cathedral's giant spire. a few minutes after that, the spire collapsed. around 8:00 p.m. local time, notre dame's entire roof collapsed and the island on which the cathedral sits was evacuated by police, amid fears the entire building could fall. at first, responders worked to salvage the priceless art. p parisians sang hymns as they watched their cathedral burn.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> joining me now from outside notre dame with the latest on today's devastating fire, msnbc and nbc news foreign correspondent matt bradley. matt, what is the latest? >> reporter: well, chris, what we're hearing now is that the fire is basically contained. or all but extinguished. the latest here is that 60% of that roof has been burned up. the spire you saw that now famous footage of the spire collapsing, that fell into the nave of the church.

dramatic images of the light coming in and showing in to the center of the church as firefighters have doused the entire place with water. now, this iconic church is really a symbol of the center of paris and of catholics throughout the world. so it's a devastating blow. not just to paris, but, really, to the entire church. and so, you know, looking back on this, this was something that a lot of people have been -- they're trying to see what exactly was -- went wrong here. of course there was extensive renovations. there are a lot of things that did go right. 16 of the statues that were on top of this cathedral were removed for the renovations only days earlier. now, that was important because that means that a lot of the artwork was spared. now, two of the main relics, some of the major relics that form the foundation of this church, you know, a lot of cathedrals and catholic churches are built around relics from the time of jesus christ's life. they were spared. a lot of the artwork was spared. some of these beautiful rose

windows, the circular windows that you can see around the church, they were also spared and a lot of the stained glass windows, we're still waiting to hear on the status of them. truly hundreds of years old, these windows. a lot of them have seemed to have come out okay. so, really, a lot of this renovation work was timed just right for this fire, so a lot of this stuff had been removed or put into safe keeping because of the extensive work done on the exterior of the cathedral. that means a lot of the most important artworks and one of the most important architectural treasures here were saved. chris? >> matt bradley, thank you very much for that update. for historical context, i'm joined by professor of sociology at rice you've. john, let me start with you. i guess we should start on the silver lining, which is that there was a point today where both the images we were seeing and the authorities' very bleak

prognosis made it seem that it may be the case the entire church would be reduced to rubble, and that seems to have been avoided. >> yes, chris, i was concerned this afternoon that while the wooden roof structure on of the top of the nave, that was being completely destroyed. i was hoping the stone vaults that you see when you look up inside the niave, i was hoping that they would be secure. your report suggests at least some of those stone vaults have collapsed with debris and material falling into the nave itself. that's a real tragedy. the other two things i was worried about were the two great rose windows on the north and south trancept arms. i think the largest of those, the most historic from the 1250s, it looks like they have

been saved, fortunately. >> wow. craig, give us a sense of what this has endured and survived over the last 850 years. >> well, the history is remarkable. it actually goes back to the site itself where the cathedral is built. it actually goes back to roman times. the catholic parisians actually fought a battle against the romans and then over time the catholic church got involved around 1163 and pope alexander iii had consecrated this church, and in 1345, 200 years roughly, after this original cons creati ecration, the church was finally finalized. it gives us a glimpse not only into french history, but into european history, into christian history and also even the united states. because a lot of sectarian

issues that were happening between protestants and catholics actually were playing out in france at that time. so, literally, you cannot understand the history of all of these entities without exploring the long, long tradition of notre dame cathedral. >> john, you mentioned the roof, and i was reading today about the roof which, you know, various parts of the cathedral have been ransacked. they've been damaged in wars. that roof, though, is the original roof, right? i mean, thousands and,00 thousa of oak trees. that now will have to be rebuilt. >> it's built in a gothic manner with very heavy timbers. i'm sure they'll attempt to restore it exactly the way it was built originally. so they'll have to find timbers. they'll have to build it in the same kind of structural manner. hopefully not with steel or concrete, but, you know, really recreating it as it was

originally. >> we have some images i think we were showing from inside the first sort of images of inside the sanctuary. and, again, there is obviously significant damage. that spire, which is about 150 years old, which collapsed into the cathedral itself. as you can see from these images, it is not a destroyed structure, craig. there is -- there is much work that will have to be done, but this -- it has been spared. what do you foresee as the -- the horizon for rebuilding notre dame? >> well, thank goodness all of the historic relics were saved. the crown of thorns and the fragment of the cross were saved. now, i think this is a great opportunity for the people of paris, of all faiths, of all religions, of all races to come together and to unite in order to build -- to rebuild this structure, which isn't simply a symbol of the french and

chriss christen democr christ christendom, but this is actually an opportunity. i have little doubt that the people of paris and the people of france will unite and build an even bigger and even stronger cathedral. >> john, there had been some back and forth about the costs of these renovations, and about concerns about some of the structural integrity of the church, of course, maintaining something like this is extremely expensive and some jurisdictional battles between the nation of france, which owns it and leases it, to the catholic church. we got word today that it appears to be an accident, what what do you foresee as the kind of recrimination or fallout from what happened today? >> well, if it's an accident, you know, related to the renovation work that's going on, hopefully there will be some insurance involved. and don't forget, in venice just a few years ago, the great opera

house in venice had a very similar construction fire and had to be totally rebuilt. you know, i'm sure they'll do that here with notre dame cathedral. there will be a number of players, the french government, the city of paris and presumably insurance and private donors as well. >> well, it's amazing that the firefighters of paris were able to rescue that building today. it really did look touch and go there for a large stretch of today. john stamp? craig consdine, thank you very much for being with me tonight. >> thank you, chris. if stephen miller is running president trump's immigration policy, including the proposal to release migrants in sanctuary cities, then democrats say stephen miller should be called to testify before congress. that's next. ress that's next. lease the 2019 rx 350 for $409 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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there are 6.5 million of them; they all need a forever home. it would mean the world to them, and they will love you forever. key democrats in the house are now looking to bring stephen miller, the president's top adviser on immigration, in front of their committees to testify about his role in a proposed plan to release immigrant detainees into sanctuary cities as a form of retaliation against president trump's political enemies. joining me now is a staffer at the atlantic who profiled miller last year calling him, quote, trump's right-hand troll. since you wrote that profile, i think it is fair to say that miller has more power than he did then. do you think that's accurate? >> yes, absolutely. he, you know, at the time -- one of the things i was told is that, look, stephen miller's power comes from the fact that his instincts on immigration align with the president's, so

he's often a sounding board for the president. now it appears in talking to people in the president's orbit confirms this he is really taking the lead on immigration policy. in a way that no one else in the white house is really set up to challenge him on. >> there is also, i mean, your piece was called his "right-hand troll," and, you know, his, the idea of -- you like migrants so much, we'll bring them to your city. okay, fine. >> yeah. >> that's fine. chicago, new york, los angeles, all these places have migrants all over the place all the time. they've done well. that is more trolling thanapolboonyarascy and itthan policy. and and this has been kind of the pattern of stephen miller's time in the white house and to a certain extent donald trump's whole presidency, right? it's been governing and policy making as a form of trolling and provocation. you can go all the way back to the very first week of trump's

presidency when the travel ban was instituted in a really chaotic way and steve bannon who was later quoted bragging that he -- they tried to make it chaotic so that, quote, the snowflakes should show up at the airports and rally, right? >> right. >> so for years, really, policy making has had kind of this trolling twinge, but to me the sanctuary cities policy is especially indicative of that sensibility. this idea that we're not going to use policy just for sound governance, that we're not going to advance an agenda to solve problems and we're not going to and vance a message to try to win over our opponents, we're going to literally try to provoke and agitate the other side, whatever the human consequences are along the way. >> there is also something i thought was interesting in this "new york times" profile of him that i want to read you. i think it lends some evidence about miller's motivations. this is him basically berating the acting head of i.c.e.

you ought to be work on this regulation all day every day. it should be the first thought you have when you wake up and the last thought before you go to bed, sometimes you shouldn't go to bed. that's him talking to the acting head of i.c.e. as a meeting last month in the white house situation room about regulation to deny welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. whatever the political calculation here, stephen miller feels this way his entire adult life, that he does not like immigrants. he wants to get rid of them and keep them out and that is a cause to which he is absolutely to the bone marrow dedicated. >> yeah, so this is one of the important points we have to make when we talk about this trolling as policy making. that doesn't mean that he doesn't believe anything. in fact, stephen miller is a hard-right restrictionist ideolog on this issue. immigration has been an issue that has obsessed him since he was in high school, at least. he definitely has an agenda here. frankly, in a way a lot of people in this white house don't, e, he has a fully formed

world view he brought into the white house and he's using his perch to kind of advance it. the one thing i would note, though, i've heard from some people in the president's orbit, stephen miller's power in large part has always come from the fact that he's stayed behind the scenes. now he's up front, he's in the spotlight and seems to be acting out of, what i heard from one source sounds like an emotional place. she's genuinely very frustrated that they haven't made more progress on this issue that he cares about and that's why he's being so kind of belligerent and aggressive. >> well, there is also a constitutional issue here, which is that when you've got the white house running a cabinet agency essentially from the white house and defying the basic spirit of advise and consent, if not the letter, there is reason to have him come before congress, as democrats are now saying they want him to do. mckay, thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, three new candidates join the democratic field as four men top the polls. we'll talk about the state of the race with the one and only

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i got to say, i follow politics for a living and even i can't keep track of who is actually declared and who is just exploring a run in 2020. it was sort of news to me that pete buttigieg only me that pet buttigieg only announced yesterday. he has been riding positive polling. the latest numbers have him polling third at 9%. cory booker made his official announcement this weekend, saturday, in his hometown of newark, new jersey. cory booker has been running for months as well. relative newcomer congressman eric swalwell announced his candidacy. at least 18 democrats have declared that they are running, including candidates like a spiritual book author who had a town hall on cnn this weekend. there's one undeclared candidate, former vice-president

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2018 was the best year for women candidates in the history of the american republic. 117 people getting seats in congress. there are nearly as many this ye year. and yet when you look at the top five 2020 candidates, something jumps out. four are white men. what has and hasn't changed? i'm joined by the author of "good and bad." >> i think people are terrified post 2016. a lot of women, a lot of

feminists wanted to see a woman president who are like, after hillary, i do not think a woman can win. they might prefer warren and gillibrand or harris, i'm not going to go there. it's too terrifying. we have to pick the safe white guy. there's a little of that. there's just your plain old preference for a familiar kind of figure. in any flavor. the amazing -- >> presidential. >> presidential. >> what does that mean? >> the amazing thing when you look at the guys who are at the top, it's biden, bernie, it's beto. it's the "b" team. they are not united by anything except their whiteness. you have establishment. you have new outsider. it's this one thing they have all got in common. >> the top two, bernie was the runner-up in the last primary. he was the vice-president for the most democratic president in years. those two and one of the leaders in democratic -- those two are

in a different category. it's when you get beto and buttigieg where it's interesting. >> this is early. there is a lot -- if i believed this was going to persist through the primaries, i would be hopeless. i do not believe that. >> i want to -- you talked about the sort of once bitten twice shy kind of feature. i thought this quote was interesting, back in january in "the new york times." too many americans may want to take another chance on a female candidate after hillary clinton met with mistrust in swing states. there's this political headline about warren battling the ghosts of hillary. i hear from people who have good feminist politics but in a

descripti descriptive sense. persuasive to a point i think a lot of people were like, you are right. that is -- women have an uphill battle. >> it's interesting because -- this is manage elizabeth we so elizabeth war reren talked abou. she was coming on the heels of a historic woman candidate who lost badly. she told the story, just as a side story, of how people told her the state is not ready, don't do it. she has had that experience of coming in as a candidate when a major female candidate has flamed out previous and all of the anxiety about it. i think it's important to remember, if we think back in 2007, there was a lot anxiety

about whether obama could -- a among of the democrats. remember. >> no, my facial expression is, yeah, among black democrats. >> black democrats until he won in iowa when it was like, wait. then you saw the move from hillary clinton to barack obama. we have to get further into the debates, listening to how people respond to each other before we can take the temperature. >> i should note -- we're putting this category of white men and buttigieg is in it, an out gay man, his husband there. it's barrier breaking and new and remarkable. >> he is young. there's a lot of stuff. there is within that category of white men, there's diversity. you have bernie sanders and joe biden in that category of white men. >> do you think -- my question is, what is the connection between what we saw in 2018 and now? that's the thing i'm having a hard time solving. >> in part, it's voters.

as somebody who writes about women candidates, i heard this in 2018, including from feminists, from women at organizations that support women candidates who are like, a lot of these women aren't going to win. covering these races, i was told again and again, a lot of these women candidates aren't going to win. we have to be prepared for the narrative when they lose in the primary or the general. the story line is women can't win. then they started winning. they were winning primaries. then won the generals in many cases. this isn't that dissimilar to me. >> we are early enough that -- >> we haven't had voters. one thing i think a lot -- >> it's a great point. >> they base this on prior voting patterns. here is the secret, no one knows anything. >> i know everything. aside from that. >> to the television audience watching us speak with expertise. we don't know anything. >> we know what kind of money people are raising, what kind of operations they have, what attention they are getting. >> there are a couple of structural reasons, a former

vice-president, a man who ran a successful campaign two, three years ago, it's natural they are ahead. it's the structural impulses around gender and race that make voters and media comfortable covering white men. >> all right. thank you so much for joining us. the rachel maddow show is on before. pete buttigieg is on your show. >> i never met him before. someone said, i would like to introduce you to mayor pete. i said, hi. now i'm nervous. thanks for joining us this hour. as chris mentioned, in a few minutes, sitting at this desk with me will be democratic presidential candidate pete buttigieg. i never met him before. i'm looking forward to that. tonight, all eyes remain on paris. the historic cathedral of